It was self exile, both feet

hidden under suitcases. It was

darkness and the sound

 

of sticks rubbing for fire.

It was wilderness, not a graveyard,

the longing for a kiss in a dream.

The seven-page eponymous opening poem in Robin Messing’s gentle and fierce new collection is an elegaic walk across a dreamscape of family, love, and loss, where you find

a naked sister leaking perfume, her sweetness

a funeral, her songs like dress-up with spiky

high heels. You hold tightly knowing her arms

 

are broken, her dress smudged with lipstick,

her will singular, horrifying, her beauty

one day to be mourned.